I received an application for absentee voting the other day, but I decided to toss it… I’m voting in person. We have early voting here and the polling station is seldom crowded when I vote, so I have no qualms about safety. Plus I really enjoy voting in person.
Peggy Noonan’s latest article Get Ready for an Election Crisis talks about what a mess this election might be, partly because of the delays caused by voting by mail. It’s estimated that about half the ballots will be by mail possibly causing misleading results on election night. That plus the highly polarized country could undermine our faith in the process. She says,
We should laud and encourage those states that are seeing the potential challenge and concentrating on timely vote counting and voter integrity. We should encourage states to take actions that will accommodate the changed voting reality, and celebrate those that are on the case. Boosting trust in the process this year is a patriotic act.
It may be late with 40-some days to go, but if you’re not in the U.S. military or away from home, and not sick or especially vulnerable to illness, and if you haven’t already voted early, sent in your ballot or requested a ballot, you should try hard to vote in person. This will help election-night numbers align more closely with ultimate reality, bolster the system, and help avoid the mischief of political operators. Mask up, glove up, maintain your distance, and show up. “It’s inconvenient.” Democracy is inconvenient. Do your part.
For my U.S. readers, how do you feel about voting in person? Would you feel safe doing it? For my non-U.S. readers, is voting a problem where you are?
September 24, 2020
Personally I think that if you can go out to the stores you can go out to the polls. I don’t see that it’s any more dangerous than it is to stand 6 feet apart in a line at the grocery store.
I agree. In the past my polling station has been a lot less crowded than my supermarket. And I do love voting in person.
We will be voting in person…
Good! 🙂
Granted, we’re in a small community, but I’ve absolutely no reservations about in-person voting. The poll workers we witnessed while voting in July’s run-off election had taken all precautions. Frankly, I felt safer there than at Wal-Mart. 🙂
Good! 🙂
I had planned on voting in person but I just sent for my mail ballot.
The only reason I did that was because I don’t know how I will be feeling come Election Day. I came home sick today and I can’t imagine standing in line for very long if I felt like this and I want to make sure my vote is cast.
That’s the sensible thing for you to do. Even if you felt well that day you should be super careful. 🙁
There are places where they don’t have enough voting places open—on purpose—and people are forced to wait in line for hours. That’s not safe or easy for a lot of people. I haven’t voted in person in twenty years and so I will keep on voting by mail. I actually drop mine off at the township offices, since I live so close instead of actually dropping my ballot in a mailbox. We can track ours on the internet. Michigan is getting ready to mail there’s out this week and I will vote as soon as it gets here.
As I said, for a long time there have been no problems for me voting in person so that’s what I do. But about 30 years ago our polling station had so many people registered that the line was about two hours long. I didn’t vote that year and would have done it by mail if I had known about that possibility. For a few years after that I got my ballot by mail and filled it out, then dropped it off at the County Clerk’s office. That worked fine too. The main thing is to get the votes in on time in secure way.
We’ve had the applications for absentee ballots on the refrigerator for weeks now — Arkansas has determined that concerns about COVID are valid for requesting an absentee ballot. That being said, we’ve decided to vote in person during the early voting period.
Early voting helps a lot…it keeps the crowds down.
A mask a q-tip or stylus pen…no problem. I too will vote in person. It can’t be much different than spending a few minutes in a crowded grocery store.
It depends on where people are, but I think it’s more fun to vote in person when the conditions are right.
We intend to vote by person. Unless it gets so bad within the next month that they have to not have the polls open which is what scares me. It seems the virus is climbing climbing so by November 3rd what will it be by then and then what
Good luck with the number of cases…that would mess things up.
If ever, we should vote in person, it is this election.
And we will.
As we have always done.
Mask up!
Glove up!
Go!
Thank you for this post.
It feels good to vote, doesn’t it.
I prefer to vote in-person. Have a lovely weekend. 🙂
You too! 🙂
We have been voting by absentee ballots for as long as I can remember. My husband would travel often and could possibly miss an election. I do know that it is going to be a mess and I am not looking forward to it. I am thinking of dropping our ballots off at a polling place.
Dropping the ballots off at the polling place is a great option.